Condoleezza Rice on Immigration

Secretary of State

We need immigrants but also need immigration laws

[Immigrants] have come here from impoverished nations just to make a decent wage. And they have come here from advanced societies as engineers and scientists that fuel the knowledge-based revolution across this great land.

We must continue to welcome
the world's most ambitious people to be a part of us. In that way, we stay young and optimistic and determined. We need immigration laws that protect our borders, meet our economic needs, and yet show that we are a compassionate nation of immigrants.

Source: 2012 Republican National Convention speech
, Aug 29, 2012

Most illegal immigrants should be able to stay in the US

On the AmericansElect.org immigration question, Dr. Rice chose 'B' from the list below, with a relative weighting of 15%:

When you think about illegal immigration, which of the following come closest to your opinion?

A. All illegal immigrants
should be able to stay in the US legally

B. Most illegal immigrants should be able to stay in the US, with some exceptions

Comprehensive immigration reform, while respecting law

Q: On immigration: we used to have an open-arms policy, where we would let in the best and the brightest people in the world, to work in these companies and continue to make this country more competitive. Now, people with PhD’s, smart people from
international economies, can’t get visas.

A: Well, we need a comprehensive immigration reform. Everybody knows that we need people to respect our laws. And that needs to be said first. But it is also the case that we are a country of immigrants.
We are a country that has been tremendously benefited by bringing the people to the US who want to work hard; who believe in the kind of free environment that we have here. They’ve built this country and they will continue to build this country if we
can remain open. I believe that this country is going to have to have enlightened immigration policies if we’re going to stay this strong, competitive, open magnet for the best and brightest from around the world that we’ve been.

Source: CNBC interview on Maria Bartiromo show
, May 23, 2008

Immigrants must speak English to succeed

It’s not enough to just have immigration reform. When you’re in America, you also have to be able to have the ability to access what is great about America. And what is great about
America is that if you work hard and you have the tools, you can go as far as you want to go and that means you have to be educated, that means you have to speak the language.

No backlash from knowledge-based Asian immigration

Q: Do you see any backlash to Europeans buying up American companies and Europeans working here?

A: A lot of the knowledge-based immigration is not European. It is Asian. If you go down to Intel and you stand in the elevator, the software engineers
around you are likely to be Pakistani or Indian or Israeli or Russian, but I do not think that it is causing a backlash, maybe because the economy is so strong. There are people who want to make it a backlash, but it is not really resonating.

The long-term challenge is that as job creation is happening at the high end, the skill level of the population is not really picking up. So education has become a kind of surrogate hot-button issue for this divide between people who can work in Silicon
Valley and people who cannot. And because it is partly disproportionately minorities who are not making it into those jobs that is a real danger. It is less focused on foreigners coming here to do that than it is the ill-preparedness of Americans.